But I have been slowly doing the preliminary work that precedes blogging - reading my e-mail.

Just came across a couple of great quotes that make a critical point that we discuss at length in every Making Disciples seminar and which I made in a spur-of-the-moment consultation last week with a couple seeking help for their parish's evangelization efforts.

They come from a post entitled Evangelization Precedes Catechesis (Yes!) from a blog simply titled "Evangelization"sponsored by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.

Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon said, “Without an evangelized heart, without falling in love with Christ -- which is really what it means to be evangelized -- the practice of the faith redounds to duty and obligation. There is only a slim possibility of persevering in the practice of a faith that is viewed primarily or exclusively this way. Perhaps those properly evangelized would not so readily leave the One they love.”

and in another post:

Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. recently spoke at the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) Convention hosted by our Archdiocese and the Office of Catholic Education in which over 8,000 Catholic educators attended from across the nation and other parts of the world. Archbishop Wuerl asked us to contextualize our entire catechetical effort in the wider initiative of evangelization. He encouraged us to “envision evangelization as an indispensable point of reference for catechesis whose aim must always be to arouse faith as well as to mature and inform faith.”